Chapter 68: Farewell to Youth, Fearless of Time and Wind!

Indeed, the sudden appearance of Jiang Yi strongly resembled the use of a teleportation talisman.

Without answering, he simply swept his gaze quietly across the three people standing beside Guan Ling.

Guan Ling did not dwell on how he had used the teleportation talisman either, but went straight to introductions:

"These are three helpers I found, all official players."

"This one..."

She pointed to a short, dark-skinned man dressed entirely in black.

"His name is..."

The thin, dark-skinned short man stepped right past Guan Ling and cut in first:

"My name is Zu An—*Zu* as in ancestors, *An* as in safety. Say it fast and it sounds like making a fortune, so you can call me the God of Wealth."

"..."

Jiang Yi had no idea just how divine this "God of Wealth" truly was, but he was profoundly shocked by the man's name!

Being polite, he called out, "God Zu An."

"..." Zu An's face darkened, though given his already dark complexion, it was hardly noticeable.

Guan Ling swallowed a laugh and added:

"The God of Wealth is a standout among the official members of the Blood Swallow Club. He possesses a passive skill granting high resistance to poisons, along with targeted skills against toxic substances."

Zu An kept his face gloomy and remained silent, looking as though he had little desire to speak.

It seemed this name of his was not chosen intentionally through a name-change card.

Guan Ling then raised a hand toward another tall, thin young man wearing glasses.

"This is the Scholar Shang Qinghua. He was the top science student in Jiangcheng city exams the year before last."

Well, what do you know—an overachieving honor student!

Shang Qinghua pushed up his glasses, wearing a rather cold and aloof expression.

Guan Ling continued, "He is also an official member of the Blood Swallow Club. His level isn't high, but his combat ability is solid, and he commands a remarkably powerful fire-element skill."

Jiang Yi nodded.

When Guan Ling pointed to the final person, her gaze swept over Jiang Yi with a lingering, unreadable look before she said indifferently:

"This is Du Yuanze, an official member of your Lotte Club."

Du Yuanze looked Jiang Yi up and down, smoothly taking over the conversation: "Your name is Jiang Yi? A member of the Lotte Club's suicide squad?"

Upon hearing this, the gazes the other three directed at Jiang Yi turned inexplicably peculiar.

Jiang Yi nodded.

Du Yuanze frowned and advised, "If you have the time, you'd better change your name."

Jiang Yi shrugged.

Obviously, Guan Ling was not about to blurt out the fact that she had snatched Liao Yuanfeng's teleportation talisman.

The look she had given Jiang Yi earlier was also a silent plea for him to keep his mouth shut.

Naturally, Jiang Yi had no intention of talking too much.

Right at that moment, however, a strained voice suddenly rang out from not far away, calling out stiffly:

"Jiang Yi... Jiang Yi??"

Jiang Yi cast his gaze in that direction.

He knew that was where Luo Shan and Zhou Yiming were hiding.

Guan Ling and the others, however, did not.

Instantly tensing up, they carefully approached, following the source of the sound.

Upon drawing closer, Guan Ling was the first to recognize him: "It's Zhou Yiming!"

She rushed forward swiftly, hauling Luo Shan and Zhou Yiming out from the thorny thicket.

Both men were covered in virulent poisons and injuries, looking utterly wretched.

Luo Shan was somewhat better off and could still make a sound.

Zhou Yiming, however, had slipped entirely into unconsciousness.

Guan Ling hurriedly stepped forward to feed Zhou Yiming a Rejuvenation Pill and an Antidote Pill, while unable to stop herself from scolding Luo Shan:

"Didn't you have a BGM speaker? Why didn't you use it? It has tracks that restore stamina and status inside!"

Hearing this, Luo Shan nearly burst into tears!

He felt so damn wronged!

"The second I was teleported into this fierce beast realm, I tumbled straight down a hillside..."

"It was pitch black out here, I couldn't see a damn thing!"

"As for the BGM speaker, who knows where it rolled off to! I was stumbling around blindly the whole way, and somehow ended up poisoned..."

"Fortunately, though I didn't find my speaker, I managed to stumble right into a corpse-like Zhou Yiming..."

"I have no idea what Zhou Yiming's condition is now; when I first touched him, he could still answer me, which is how I knew it was Zhou Yiming..."

"And now... I don't know how much time has passed, but Zhou Yiming isn't even breathing anymore. He's probably a goner..."

"Damn it! I am just so unbelievably unlucky!"

Luo Shan muttered these words in broken fragments, making it abundantly clear how furious and aggrieved he felt.

Guan Ling listened with a speechless expression, though she was not stingy enough to withhold a Belly-Clearing Pill and an Ice Silk Fruit, which she handed over to Luo Shan.

After consuming them, Luo Shan finally recovered his vision and could see his surroundings clearly.

Catching sight of Jiang Yi, he looked as though he had found a long-lost relative, stopping just short of rushing over to sob about how fellow villagers meeting in exile always bring tears to their eyes.

Yet, noticing the several imposing figures standing beside Jiang Yi, he instantly behaved himself, not daring to run his mouth any further.

Having fed Zhou Yiming two pills, Guan Ling decisively administered a third—an artificially refined, white Longevity Pill.

When injured players ingested a Longevity Pill, it still provided a certain restorative effect.

Sure enough, once the Longevity Pill took effect, Zhou Yiming's condition finally began to improve.

As he slowly opened his eyes, Guan Ling fed him a Belly-Clearing Pill and an Ice Silk Fruit as well.

After waiting a short while, Zhou Yiming finally regained his sight.

The moment he laid eyes on Guan Ling, along with the two Blood Swallow Club members, his entire spirit reawakened with a jolt!

"Guan Ling! Zu An! Shang Qinghua!"

"Where is Wang Xueyan? I want to see Wang Xueyan!"

"Damn those bastards from the Green Bay Group! I'm going to exterminate their eighteen generations of ancestors!!!"

"I'll make sure they die horribly!!!"

"..."

Clearly, seeing members of the Blood Swallow Club instantly filled Zhou Yiming with supreme confidence.

At the same time, it stirred up a towering rage that nearly stripped away his sanity.

His eyes were burning red with fury.

No sooner had he recovered than he began clamoring to settle the score with the Green Bay Group.

Guan Ling pressed her fingers to her brow, explaining with forced patience: "The Green Bay Group has already been wiped out. You're in the fierce beast realm right now, and Wang Xueyan had matters to attend to, so she didn't come in."

"A-A fierce beast realm?! I..."

Zhou Yiming looked left and right, his complexion turning faintly pale as the arrogant aura he projected shrank away by a vast margin in an instant.

Yet, he quickly frowned again and demanded, "Wang Xueyan... why didn't Wang Xueyan come? What could possibly be more important than my safety?"

"..." Guan Ling fell silent for a moment. "You triggered a beast tide, and she has to deal with the aftermath."

Zhou Yiming looked as though he wanted to argue further.

Guan Ling cut him off directly:

"The situation in this fierce beast realm is rather peculiar. For now, let's figure out a way to escort you back safely."

In truth, Zhou Yiming was not entirely a fool.

It was just that he had been pampered too heavily during his celebrity days and had spent far too long looking down from above, entirely forgetting how to show respect to others.

He could put on an act in front of the cameras, perhaps.

But certain attitudes carved deep into one's bones were difficult to alter.

Catching the expressions of Guan Ling and the others, he wisely clamped his mouth shut, muttering darkly, "Fine then. I expect you all to escort me back safely as soon as possible."

Such a tone...

Zu An and Shang Qinghua nodded with deadpan expressions.

Du Yuanze's expression, however, turned somewhat subtle.

Still, considering that this pretty boy had influential backing and that Wang Xueyan was a hopeless romantic, he chose to keep his comments to himself.

The group decided to head back toward the swamp first to assess the situation.

Along the way, Luo Shan kept his eyes peeled across the ground, and as luck would have it, he managed to find his lost BGM speaker.

His depressed mood vanished in an instant.

Yet, just as he was hugging his recovered speaker and grinning foolishly,

he discovered...

Spread out across the perimeter of the now-calmed swamp was a horrifying pile of...

Human remains!

"Th-That is..."

He swallowed hard, letting out a startled gasp: "I see... th-those are the standard-issue uniforms of the Lotte Club!"

They were the uniforms uniformly distributed to them by Liao Yuanfeng when they went on missions!

Right at that moment, the clothes he and Jiang Yi wore were those exact same uniforms!

Yet amidst those remains, many such uniforms were torn to shredded fragments!

Luo Shan's face turned pale, as if it was only at this moment that he finally grasped the sheer cruelty of this apocalyptic game.

And the true meaning behind that so-called mortality rate...

It turned out not to be a cold, chilling number after all.

Instead, they represented individual, concrete, vibrant lives!

Among those corpses, there might very well be people like Zhang Peng and Li Shoude—teammates who had been with him just a moment ago!

Realizing what they were looking at, Zhou Yiming's complexion also turned faintly pale, his arrogant pretense faltering.

Guan Ling and the others, meanwhile, maintained their usual composure.

Especially upon noticing the absence of a living Liao Yuanfeng, Guan Ling's mood improved even further.

After a brief discussion with the others, she concluded that the toxic gases still posed a significant threat; should an explosion occur...

If they tried to start a fire standing close to the swamp, it would likely prove hazardous.

It was best to keep their distance.

Yet if they stood too far back, Shang Qinghua's fire-element skill lacked the necessary range.

Following a final deliberation, Jiang Yi suggested using archery to set the fire from a distance.

As it happened, Luo Shan possessed a compound bow.

And yet...

With all preparations complete, the group withdrew a safe distance away from the miasmic swamp.

Standing tall and straight, Jiang Yi was just about to draw the bow and loose a flaming arrow when—

With the arrow nocked and the bowstring pulled to its limit, his gaze suddenly snapped toward a certain patch of the surrounding woods.

Guan Ling turned her head to look as well, asking in confusion, "What is it? Is someone trying to ambush us again?"

Jiang Yi frowned in contemplation for a moment, then gave a slight shake of his head, shifting his focus back to the task of burning the swamp.

Elsewhere.

Some distance away from Jiang Yi and his group stood an ancient, towering tree.

Chang Jiaoe pressed her back tightly against the trunk of the giant tree.

Her cold expression grew slightly stiff, her heart pounding furiously as her chest heaved with rapid breaths.

At the same time, a buzzing sound seemed to echo relentlessly inside her mind!

Jiang Yi...

He really was still alive!

And what was more, he was living perfectly well!

Within Chang Jiaoe's heart stirred a complex swirl of emotions she could neither clearly define nor fathom.

Just moments ago.

Watching from afar as Jiang Yi raised his hands to draw the bowstring taut,

her gaze had suddenly frozen, and an image inexplicably surfaced in her mind...

It was a line she had once copied down back when she worked as a lifestyle blogger.

As an inspirational goddess of her time, it was a lyric she had shared to encourage high school seniors preparing for their college entrance exams.

She had never imagined that, upon reuniting after all this time, that particular line of lyrics would apply to Jiang Yi with such striking perfection...

——*See again the youth drawing his bow to the full, fearing neither the years nor the wind.*